It was dark inside the old barn, and quiet. Falling down and forgotten, the structure sat on the very outskirts of the encampment.
Dean had heard about the barn, but he'd never been inside until today. The barn was a sort of fortress used to protect The Word. Those who tried to silence The Word were brought here and silenced themselves. There was a freshly dug cemetery out behind the barn to attest to The Word's power.
Dean had brought his brother here just this evening.
It was dark inside the barn, and quiet.
Except for the sound of Sam's suffering.
Dean sat across from his brother and rocked quietly back and forth, his arms around his knees, face buried. For some reason, Dean was unable to bring himself to leave. He knew someone would come looking for him soon, but he couldn't find it within himself to care.
He'd done something horrible, something he knew he was going to regret for the rest of his life. Or maybe he was about to. The answer wasn't clear.
He just couldn't quite put his finger on it.
He'd brought his brother here just this evening because Sam needed to be silenced. He threatened The Word, and protecting The Word was Dean's mission.
But before that, Dean thought he'd had another mission.
But that seemed like a lifetime ago. Probably that mission had ended when his new one had begun, but Dean wished he could feel convinced.
He looked up and over at Sam, frowning. The younger boy sat with his back against the wall, cuffed hands above him - secured to a rung bolted to one of the boards. His hair was saturated with sweat, his eyes wild as they made desperate circuits of the room. Whatever he was seeing made him cry out in fear and cower into himself, his boots scrabbling uselessly against the rotted wood of the floor. Dean looked around, trying to see what his brother saw, but the only thing visible was darkness and a few faint shadows from the three-quarter moon where it penetrated the broken timbers.
Sam sounded terrified - like a wounded thing -his voice raspy, mostly from calling out a single word over and over again.
"Dean!"
Sometimes the word came out loud and forceful, like Sam was angry. Other times it was just the barest whimper that Dean had to strain to hear.
It was the small, broken version of his name that set Dean to rocking with his head buried in his arms.
That version, spoken with such pain and disbelief and regret behind it, made Dean feel disoriented, like something was trying to shake loose inside his brain.
But he had a mission. Failing was not an option.
He rose to his feet and stumbled drunkenly away, leaving the barn behind him.